Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton

After serving two terms on the City Council, Bridget Donnell Newton is serving her second term as Mayor.

Newton serves as the council liaison to the Recreation and Parks Advisory Board, Rockville Seniors, Inc. and is a member of the Board of Directors of Rockville Economic Development, Inc.

She is a member of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ Board of Directors. In December 2016, she was unanimously elected chair of the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board.

Newton is president of the Maryland Municipal League, a statewide organization that represents and advocates on behalf of Maryland’s 157 towns and cities. She is the sixth president from Rockville to head the organization since its founding in 1936.

Newton was elected to the MML Board of Directors in 2012 and named chair of the organization’s legislative committee after a year as vice chair. Newton served as president of the Montgomery Chapter of MML from November 2012 through June 2015.

While on the City Council from 2009-2013, Newton served as the liaison to the Rockville Planning Commission, Rockville Housing Enterprises, the Senior Commission, the Recreation and Park Advisory Board, the Communications Task Force, the Rockville Youth Commission and the Landlord Tenant Affairs Commission.

Before her election to the City Council, Newton served as Chair of the Town Center Action Team, Chair of the Compensation Commission and as a member of the Imagine Rockville visioning process.

She was a Block Captain, Vice President and President of the West End Citizens Association (WECA), served as Co-Chair of WECA’s Committee on Beall’s Grant II and was a member of the West End Traffic Management Group. Newton was also involved in the Beall Elementary PTA as a classroom helper, Vice President and President. Newton and her family are active members of Potomac Presbyterian Church.

Newton graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1980 with a double major in history and politics/government. She is a 2013 graduate of the Academy for Excellence in Governance, a collaborative effort by the University of Maryland’s Institute for Governmental Service and Research, the Maryland Association of Counties (MACO) and MML.

Newton worked on Capitol Hill and then as a project manager for a small business consulting firm in Washington, D.C. before leaving in 1988 to become a full-time mother and volunteer.

A Rockville resident since 1981, Mayor Newton and her husband live in the West End neighborhood. They have two children.